The present invention relates to paper punch dies for making holes in sheets of paper.
Automatic punches such as the Punchmaster 3120(trademark) from Spiel Associates, Inc. are used primarily to punch a row of holes adjacent to the edge of a sheet of paper to facilitate binding, such as by using a spiral coil. The holes are punched by aligned pins which move in unison down and through the paper, thereby imparting punched holes therein.
One time consuming task during set-up is to center the punch pattern of the holes to be punched with respect to the edge of the paper. To facilitate the initial adjustment as well as subsequent fine adjustments, a left side guide and a right side guide are used together with scales imprinted with paper width sizes, which are useful for initial setting. The guides are set on either side of the paper sheets to guide them properly in a centrally aligned manner through the punching die.
While other suitably rigid and stress-resistant materials may be used, typically, the punching die is made of cast iron.
These side guides are used to put the proper side forces on the paper so as to eliminate lateral shifting without undue buckling. Since each edge must be adjusted separately, any slight lateral shifting of one guide to adjust the hole pattern centering must be accompanied by a corresponding shift of the opposite side guide while maintaining proper side forces. Therefore all of these adjustment parameters are interactive.
This adjustment process is iterative and tedious. Since punch dies have slight variations in their alignment on different machines, the process must be repeated every time a punch die is changed. Of course, the process must also be repeated every time the paper width is changed.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an adjustment mechanism for accurately aligning a paper punch die with the sheets of paper to be punched with holes by the paper punch die.
It is also an object of the present invention to minimize adjustment of a paper punch die during extended use.
In keeping with these objects and others which may become apparent, the present invention provides a micro adjuster for laterally moving the punch die in alignment with the sheets of paper to be punched.
Normally a plurality of punch pins are provided to punch a plurality of holes in the sheets of paper, for example, along a side edge having a hole pattern for insertion of a fastener, such as a plastic or metal spiral coil of a spiral bound book, or rings of a loose leaf ring binder. However, even a single punch pin can be used if the sheets of paper are to be held by a single fastener, such as a corner clip. Moreover, the present invention can also be used just for aligning pages together needing a single cover page, having a single cut-out window for viewing a title on a page underneath the first cover page with the window.
The present invention can be used to punch holes that need to be accurately aligned, for example, a double loop wire binding, plastic comb binding, a VELO(copyright) machine binding, calendar holes and many other applications for aligning holes in sheets of paper.
The present invention is an improvement over earlier machines which lock the punch die laterally in a fixed position by attaching it to a fixed end bracket with a retaining screw.
In contrast, in the present invention, a modified fixed bracket with a larger fine-threaded hole is used to retain a hollow micro adjuster screw which is engaged by the fine threads of the bracket. The retaining screw that attaches to the punch die now does so by being inserted through the hollow body of the micro adjuster screw and out of a clearance hole at the distal end. In this manner, fine lateral adjustments of lateral alignment between the paper to be punched and the punch die can now be performed by moving the punch die laterally.
This is done by loosening the punch die retainer screw and using the disk shaped knurled wheel on the end of the micro adjuster screw. A wrench, such as a long allen wrench, is then used to retighten the die retaining screw. Then test punches can be made and a quick readjustment performed if required.
All this is done without touching either of the side guides at the edges of the paper. Therefore, the paper side guides are used only for initial set-up whereby the paper is approximately centered, and adjustment for proper side guidance forces is performed. Fine lateral adjustment of the hole pattern is performed by moving the punch die laterally using the micro adjuster of this invention.